While we celebrate Labor Day this weekend, let us remember that includes women: from the very beginning of American industrialization, women joined men in positive action for workers. It also includes children, as no group worked harder to end child labor than unions. From their beginning, unions have been dedicated to public education and to encouraging children to be children. For far too long – until the Great Depression of the 1930s – kids of ten or twelve commonly toiled for the pittance that their families desperately needed. Read More
Doris writes a weekly column for LaGaceta, the nation's only trilingual newspaper, which has pages in English, Spanish, and Italian. Begun in 1922 for Tampa's immigrant community, it continues to thrive more than a century later. Her column is titled "In Context," as it aims to put contemporary issues in the context of the past.
An August Holiday?
August 22, 2016
La Gaceta comes out on Fridays, and this Friday’s edition will be on August 26. Ring a bell for you? It should. Let’s ring bells and raise a toast to August 26, the anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution that granted full voting rights to women in every state. This was in 1920, and some women’s organizations already are gearing up for the 100th coming soon. I hope to be at the White House, where I’m sure the first female president will be. Read More
Alternatives for Your Eyes and Ears
August 15, 2016
If you are worn down by the media’s endless focus on the election and dreading the almost three months until it’s over, let me suggest that you turn the TV channel or radio station to BBC, the British Broadcasting Company (or if you can find it, CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). Our PBS (Public Broadcasting System) is fairly good about taking a wider view, but other English-speaking networks are even better. Read More
Drawing Lines on the Land
August 8, 2016
One of the major newspapers – the New York Times, I think – wasted trees on a report that detailed the potential cost of building Donald Trump’s wall against Mexico. As I recall, it was reprinted by our local Times with a headline on the first page and an inside continuation, so it was long enough that this wasn’t just a passing notion. The reporters also examined the practicality of Trump’s promise to make Mexico pay for this wall. Read More
Violence Then and Now
August 1, 2016
This one’s for you, my La Gaceta friend (and city council candidate) Gene Siudut. Gene wrote last week in his column, “Chairman of the Bored,” that he was finding it hard to write, especially anything funny. “I fear I’ll have to fire myself and get some real help,” he said. “My struggle…is the craziness of this world. I’ve forgotten how many weeks in a row a mass shooting has invaded in our news feed...” He very empathetically goes on to lament the latest. Read More